Jacob's ladder

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Jacob's ladder

Title:

Jacob's ladder

Author:

Ulit͡skai͡a, Li͡udmila, author.

Gannon, Mary Catherine, 1953- translator.

Summary:

"Jumping between the diaries and letters of Jacob Ossetsky in Kiev in the early 1900s and the experiences of his granddaughter Nora in the theatrical world of Moscow in the 1970s and beyond, Jacob's Ladder guides the reader through some of the most turbulent times in the history of Russia and Ukraine, and draws suggestive parallels between historical events of the early twentieth century and those of more recent memory. Spanning the seeming promise of the prerevolutionary years, to the dark Stalinist era, to the corruption and confusion of the present day, Jacob's Ladder is a pageant of romance, betrayal, and memory. With a scale worthy of Tolstoy, it asks how much control any of us have over our lives--and how much is in fact determined by history, by chance, or indeed by the genes passed down by the generations that have preceded us into the world."-- Provided by publisher.

General Note:

Originally published in Russian as Lestnit͡sa I͡Akova.

Edition:

First American edition.

Physical Description:

546 pages : genealogical table ; 24 cm

Genre:

Historical fiction.

Subject Term:

Families -- Fiction.

Interpersonal relations -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Soviet Union -- History -- Fiction.

Author(s):

Gannon, Mary Catherine, 1953-

Publisher:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

Publication Date:

2019

2015

ISBN:

9780374293659

9781250619563

Publication Information:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

Call Number:

ULITSKAYA

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003554733	Adult Fiction	ULITSKAYA Ludmila	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

One of Russia's most renowned literary figures and a Man Booker International Prize nominee, Ludmila Ulitskaya presents what may be her final novel. Jacob's Ladder is a family saga spanning a century of recent Russian history--and represents the summation of the author's career, devoted to sharing the absurd and tragic tales of twentieth-century life in her nation.

Jumping between the diaries and letters of Jacob Ossetsky in Kiev in the early 1900s and the experiences of his granddaughter Nora in the theatrical world of Moscow in the 1970s and beyond, Jacob's Ladder guides the reader through some of the most turbulent times in the history of Russia and Ukraine, and draws suggestive parallels between historical events of the early twentieth century and those of more recent memory.

Spanning the seeming promise of the prerevolutionary years, to the dark Stalinist era, to the corruption and confusion of the present day, Jacob's Ladder is a pageant of romance, betrayal, and memory. With a scale worthy of Tolstoy, it asks how much control any of us have over our lives--and how much is in fact determined by history, by chance, or indeed by the genes passed down by the generations that have preceded us into the world.

Author Notes

Ludmila Ulitskaya was born in Russia and trained as a geneticist, she turned to writing after she had been stripped of her scientific credentials in the 1970's for translating a banned novel - Leon Uris's Exodus - into Russian. She lives in Moscow.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Ulitskaya (The Big Green Tent) travels through a century of tangled Russian family history in this lucid saga. Nora Ossietzky, upon the death of her grandmother, discovers a trunk filled with letters and diaries from the 1900s and 1940s that belonged to her grandfather Jacob. As Nora sifts through these writings, readers travel through some of the most turbulent times in Russian and Ukrainian history: the Jewish pogroms, WWI, prerevolutionary times, the horrific Stalin era, and Jacob's arrests and time in the gulags. Nora unravels these strands of family history while moving through the threads of her own life: her childhood with a remote father, her failed and unconventional marriage, the birth of her son, his later drug addiction, her career and fame in the theatrical world of Moscow, and the birth of her grandchild, Jacob, named after his great-great-grandfather. In the tradition of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Ulitskaya's complicated work covers a century of Russian history, politics, economics, culture, and music, which can be overwhelming. But there is something mesmerizing about the narrative's scale, and patterns emerge: the little control humans have over their lives; the impact of political forces on individuals; the certainty of death, somehow softened by the promise of new birth. This is a challenging yet rewarding epic. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.